Fifth-grader Colby Vuong waits to reveal his answer to a written question during the final round. Vuong went on to win the competition.

Just slightly and not at all.

That’s how much runner-up Bridget Ury and first-place winner Colby Vuong said they studied for Newcastle Elementary School’s National Geographic Bee — which concluded in a showdown of 14 contestants vying for the top spot in front of their instructors, classmates and family members.

Newcastle Mayor Rich Crispo and Deputy Mayor Lisa Jensen served as official judges at the Jan. 13 event.

Each fourth- and fifth-grade class held a geography bee of its own — sending two representatives of each class to go head to head with their peers for the school’s National Geography Bee.

“These questions were a lot harder than the ones in class,” Ury said. “Then we had multiple choice answers of A, B, C, D … here you just pretty much had to know them.”

Because Newcastle Elementary’s bee is a part of the National Geographic Bee, Vuong will have the opportunity to take a written test to qualify for the state bee.

Vuong and Ury, both residents of Newcastle, represented the top-two qualifiers from Mariel Hanna’s fifth-grade class.

The other 12 participants were Olivia Lesnik, Andre Wax, Brooke Ury, Dillon Gyotoku, Joey Eigo, Trisha Jaggi, Tristan Brecht, Jacob Robblee, David Heyward, Toshin Rao, Tommy Todderud and Nathan Jackson.

The top 100 students in the state, who are selected based on qualifying test scores, go on to represent their schools and compete at the state level March 30. Children in the fourth through eighth grades are eligible to compete each year.

State winners are then invited in late May to the National Geographic headquarters in Washington, D.C., to compete in the national finals for scholarships in the amount of $25,000, $15,000 and $10,000.

This is the first year Newcastle Elementary has joined thousands of schools across the country in the national test for geographic knowledge using materials from the National Geographic Society, event organizer and Newcastle PTSA member Stina Fluegge said.

“We’re hoping to give an opportunity to create a sense of excitement and knowledge for these kids to learn about the world we live in,” she said. “We try to give students an arena for recognition at the school outside of athletics … There aren’t always those opportunities for students to shine academically.”

But make no mistake, Fluegge said, the questions are far from easy.

“These are some really tough questions on here,” she said. “It’s not as simple as you might think.”

Can you make the grade?

See if you have what it takes to match up with these fourth- and fifth-graders by going to the National Geographic Bee’s website and taking the daily sample quiz at www.nationalgeographic.com/ geobee/quiz/today.

Kindergarteners get the animals two-by-two kit, where they study the structure and behavior of snails. First-graders use units about insects and seeds.

But Kate Ingalls, whose second-grade class will tackle the air and water kit this year, said she’s ready to take that hands-on learning to a whole new, integrated level by way of founding Hazelwood Elementary School’s first community garden.

She said she wants to see the students with dirt under their fingernails while they expand their relationship with the world around them.

“We certainly have involved parents, we have the space and we have a PTSA that is very supportive of us,” she said. “I started looking at the possibility of doing a garden but tying it in to the science that we’re already doing.”

After reading child advocacy expert Richard Louv’s book “Last Child in the Woods,” Ingalls said she started to grasp just how out of touch today’s generation of children can be from nature and the outdoors.

“There’s so much more technology zapped at them these days that they just don’t get outside as much,” she said.

That’s when Ingalls said she began talking to Hazelwood’s groundskeepers and administration about coming up with an on-site, gated location for the garden that will hopefully become a place to nurture a variety of vegetables, fruits and flowers for years to come.

“My goal is that obviously teachers can take their entire class out …. we’ll have enough supplies for them to do that,” she said. “The kids will get a chance to get out there and see the process of ‘I put this tiny seed in the ground, and I came back in September and I pulled this out of the ground. And look. I have a carrot.’”

She said she eventually hopes to have support from the school’s cafeteria staff to be able to use some of the food grown in the garden for meals at the school.

“My vision was to create the garden and give each grade level an opportunity to tie in the science they’re already doing out there,” she said. “It’s not just fluff. We’re not just out there playing in the dirt.”

Through a DonorsChoose.org project, Ingalls was able to buy a set of garden tools for each classroom, as well as a wheelbarrow, composter and pop-up greenhouse.

She said she would continue to apply for several garden grants and work with Hazelwood PTSA members to help fund and enable the project’s success in the coming year.

Ingalls said she needs volunteers within the community to help with the garden planning, construction and maintenance throughout the year.

“We really want to have this garden be community focused,” she said. “We welcome any support … from donations to labor to construction to garden parties.”

Get involved

Be part of the Hazelwood Community Gardens project by emailing teacher Kate Ingalls at kathryn.ingalls@rentonschools.us or go to — http://hazelwood.rentonschools.us — and click on Ingalls’ name under the “Teacher Websites” tab to join the Hazelwood Community Garden discussion board.

Diane Ferbrache

Diane Ferbrache, teacher librarian at Hazen High School, has been selected as the Renton Rotary Club’s teacher of the month.

She attended Texas State University, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in elementary education. Ferbrache attended the University of Houston, where she earned a master’s degree in curriculum and instruction and instructional technology.

She also has certification in library media services from Sam Houston State University.

Ferbrache has been a t

Kyle Arinobu

Arinobu has been involved in National Honor Society, Gordy Guides/Ignite, cross country and baseball. He has received the Advanced Placement Scholar Certificate, has several Athletic Scholar certificates and has several varsity and junior varsity letters.

Arinobu volunteers with the Newcastle Weed Warriors, Bellevue Farmers Market, Blaine Methodist Church and Nikkei Concerns. He plans to attend the University of Washington to study in the dental or pharmaceutical fields.

The district is looking for typically developing youngsters to be part of Early Education classes that serve children with special needs at Apollo, Discovery and Sunset elementary schools.

Each classroom may have up to 12 children with special needs along with three typically developing peers — who will pay no cost to participate in the preschool program. Research shows that such combined learning opportunities benefit both special-needs and typically developing children. Students must be at least 3 years old by April 15 to participate.

Any interested parent can pick up an application and get more information at the main offices of any of the three elementary schools involved. Applications are due Feb. 10; peer volunteer screening is scheduled for Feb. 15.

Families with an incoming kindergartner at Newcastle Elementary for the 2012-13 school year will receive registration packets and other information at the event. A student must be 5 years old by Aug. 31 in order to start school next year.

Proof of the child’s birth date, immunization records, proof of residency and a parent’s driver’s license must be provided while registering a child.

Entry deadline is April 6.

Physically submit either high quality 8.5-by-11 color copies or high resolution digital images of any size on CD. Do not send the original artwork.

All submission should include the student’s name, grade, school, teacher and parent name. Mail photocopies or CD and email to Lissy Mandel, Communications Department, Issaquah School District, 565 N.W. Holly St., Issaquah, WA 98027. Or email high-resolution digital images of any size to mandell@issaquah.wednet.edu.

The art selection will be finalized in May, and the district will notify families and request a brief statement giving the district permission to publish the picture and the student’s name, grade, school and teacher in the 2012-13 calendar.

According to Maraea Skeen, now 20 and starting her master’s program, Running Start saved her (and her parents) tens of thousands of dollars.

“My older sister participated in the program part time,” Skeen said. “When I was a junior, I decided it was a program I wanted to do full time.”

Running Start is offered to juniors and seniors on the Eastside through Bellevue College. Applicants must be enrolled in a public high school to be eligible, but they are not required to attend public high school. Upon acceptance, the state will pay for up to 15 credit hours per semester.

“The wonderful part of the program is that students receive dual high school and college credit,” Skeen said.

When she graduated as a senior, she had also earned her associate degree.

Running Start hours are also flexible, from 6:30 a.m. to 10 p.m., conducive for student-athletes or those who work part time. Skeen said the program also helped focus her in the right career direction.

“It helped me refine the areas of interest for my career, and went a long way to helping me determine to get my master’s degree,” she said.

To learn more information about Running Start go to http://bellevuecollege.edu/ hsprograms.

To qualify, undergraduate students must be enrolled in a minimum of nine graded hours in a single term at WSU and earn a grade point average of 3.75 or earn a 3.5 cumulative GPA based on 15 cumulative hours of graded work.

Newcastle: Michael Chau, Adriana Ho, Vy Hoang, Henry Kohm, Rosalyn Krueger, Lauren La Fontaine, Katie Lane and Ryan Maio

Renton: Matthew Asahara, Lauren Bay, Kelsey Beer, Hannah Blue, Ashley Brennan, Emily Dennison, Jeffrey Elliott, Tiana Ellison, Cameron Fuentes, Nicolaus Hoifeldt, Nathan Janders, David Johnson, Kelly Knauss, Henry Kohm, Paige Lane, Janelle Mattern, Georgia Mee, Rodney Pearce, Tiffany Sasaki, Joseph Sawyer, Ian Smith, Thor Steingrimsson, Sarah Wilcock and Teresa Wong

No major changes, at least not immediately.

That was essentially the recommendation of Issaquah School Superintendent Steve Rasmussen regarding possible adjustments to the schedules at the district’s four high schools.

But at the same time he made that recommendation to what proved to be a somewhat dissatisfied school board, Rasmussen did lay down several action steps he expects high school principals to take in the coming months.

District officials have been studying common schedules at the high schools in part in order to make better use of resources, including teachers. A schedule committee failed to come up with any final recommendation for a unified schedule, though they shared numerous findings on the overall issue.

“With the committee’s report in hand, I am announcing there will be no significant changes to the schedules at any of our high schools for 2012-2013,” Rasmussen told the school board at its regular meeting Jan. 25.

Liberty High School operates on an eight-class schedule. Issaquah and Skyline high schools have six classes a day. One argument has been that the eight-class schedule allows students more opportunity to take elective classes. A counter argument runs that Liberty’s schedule does not allow enough contact time between teachers and students, especially in core classes.

In the case of Liberty, Rasmussen said he wants the school to seek an exemption to state rules requiring each class offered consists of 150 hours of contact time. Presently, Liberty classes fall short of the 150 mark by roughly 24 hours and are approximately 36 hours behind the total contact time contained in classes offered at Issaquah and Skyline.

Rasmussen instructed Liberty officials to come up with a plan to increase contact time to 150 hours per class by the start of the 2013-14 school year. That plan might include some creative contact time, especially making use of online learning, said Patrick Murphy, district director of secondary education.

“The quantity of time that our students spend with their teachers should not be inequitable based on a student’s ZIP code,” Rasmussen said.

Liberty last received an exemption for its schedule eight years ago, according to Murphy.

Murphy said state law requires the school apply for the exemption. Liberty first received an exemption when the school switched to its current eight-period schedule. Somewhere along the line, possibly due to a change in principals, Liberty and district officials never applied for an additional exemption. Officials may have thought the exemption was permanent once granted, Murphy added.

During the time since the last exemption was granted, the state has conducted two program reviews of the district without noting any problems with the schedule exemption, Associate Superintendent Ron Thiele said.

There have been steps taken in the past three years to increase student accessibility to a variety of courses at Issaquah and Skyline, Rasmussen said. He wants a survey done to assess the effectiveness of those steps. Rasmussen wants to know what future steps can be taken to increase student choice at the schools without classes falling below the 150 hour mark in terms of contact time.

In his recommendations, Rasmussen did not ignore Tiger Mountain Community High School, the district’s alternative high school. He wants officials there to come up with ideas for new class and program offerings, some of which may be based on the rebuilding of the school if voters pass a construction bond issue that will be on the ballot in April.

Murphy said Tiger Mountain plans could include new science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, programs.

School board President Chad Magendanz said he couldn’t help but feeling somewhat disappointed with Rasmussen’s proposals. Other boards members questioned whether the plans mean officials are abandoning the idea of common schedules at district schools.

“I think these steps are moving the schools towards a more common schedule,” Murphy said, adding the schools will end up with more similar schedules than they have had in the past. For his part, Rasmussen insisted he is not necessarily scrapping the idea of a common schedule nor is he satisfied with the status quo.

“We have work to do,” he said. “We know we have work to do.”